Filling Bag End
by Holbytla
Summary: Some years after Frodo goes West, Sam writes him a letter. Isn't necessarily slashy, but could go either way.


A/N: I love Sam. Want to take him home and cuddle him. He's   
so cute. This wasn't necessarily meant to be slashy, but it   
wasn't necessarily meant to not be. It just depends on how   
you look at it.  
  
Disclaimer: I can in no way vouch for the creation of these   
characters. They rightfully belong to Tolkien and his   
family. It was their story first, after all.  
  
::Filling Bag End::  
by: Holbytla  
  
September Twenty-Second, year Fourteen Hundred and Forty-five   
of the Shire Reckoning.  
  
To Dear Mister Frodo Baggins:  
It has been a great number of years since our time   
together. The world is at peace, rightly so with good Strider   
and the Lady on the throne in Gondor, and there has never been   
a better time to bring up young hobbits the way they are meant   
to be brought up. And speaking of young hobbits, Bag End is   
quite filled with them now. We have thirteen, Rosie and I. Every   
morning I wake up to young hobbit-voices raised in some sort of   
song, of food, of family, of the birds outside the window...  
even of you. Elanor has a very good voice, and the younger ones   
ask her to sing your ballad nearly every night. They listen   
with rapt ears and wide eyes, then turn and ask me if it was   
all real, if it all really happened. Were you there, Pa? Did   
you know that brave Mister Baggins? I assure them that it's all   
true, and send them to bed. The children are filled with   
questions, so much that if I didn't know any better, I'd say   
they had a little Took in them somewheres. But I'm too much   
sure that they don't, and more suspecting that one of those   
cousins of yours is rubbing off on them. Or maybe they simply   
rubbed off on me, and I passed that to the little ones.  
I'm older now but not quite old enough to feel the   
creak of my bones, and sometimes at night I sit on the stoop   
of Bag End and stare at the sky. On some nights, I catch a   
star burning brightly that stikes up a memory of us together   
in Mordor. On those nights my mind wanders those weeks and   
months we were together against all that was dark and evil,   
and I watch your slow descension again and again. So many   
times along that journey my heart hurt, for us, for you, for   
the others, for me, and yet...  
Yet I can still remember the songs and poetry of   
Strider and Legolas, lamenting and full of sorrow, but now   
they sound changed...triumphant...  
Yet I can still taste the lembas, and while I found   
it neither satisfying nor filling at that time it now tastes   
sweet, like fresh honeysuckle...  
Yet I can remember the beauty and awe of the sights   
along the way, of Rivendell and Golden Wood, the Great River   
and Argonath, Lord Faramir's pool and even the terrible grace   
of Mordor itself...  
Yet I can still hear your voice, see you clutch the   
ring in your hand and walk forward with resolution...  
It is on nights like this that I almost wish we had to   
do it again. Almost. The pain has dulled in the lengthening of   
years and my fear is all but forgotten, but I shake myself and   
remember how it all ends, with you being so hurt and changed   
you can't even enjoy the Shire you so missed. I would no more   
wish the end of the world, truly, Mister Frodo.  
You left me Bag End when you went West with Mister   
Bilbo and Gandalf, and for all these years I've tried to fill   
it like it was meant to be filled. But even though it's now rich   
with the warmth of fire and the smell of supper, laughter and   
songs and the pattering of little hobbit feet, it still feels   
empty somehow. On those starry nights, I realize that's because   
it misses Mister Bilbo's stories and your laughter, and there is   
no Mad Baggins to fill that space. In this, I realize Bag End can   
never be truly filled again, the same way you could never be   
fully healed. The thought makes me hurt inside, but it's a good   
hurt, like the thought you'll always be remembered.  
Was it all real? Did all really happen? Was I there? Did   
I know that brave Mister Baggins?  
It was, it did, I was, and I did. I knew that Baggins so   
well that I loved him more than any breathing creature on this   
good earth. I knew him so well that I followed him into a darkness   
more sorrowing than death. I knew him so well that I gave him up   
to the world that needed him, and when finished, cast him into   
the West. I knew him so well that I took his home and all his   
posessions, in the hopes I may one day fill it with laughter like   
his again.  
I wait for that day still.  
  
In deepest and most heartfelt courtesy,  
Samwise Gamgee 


End file.
